Match-fixing the big issue

Australian Crime Commission head John Lawler. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

THE single biggest problem facing Australian sport is match-fixing, according to the head of the Australian Crime Commission, John Lawler, who argues this has been largely ignored in the firestorm of publicity that followed his recently released report.

Lawler says the zealotry of the media in seeking to identify codes, clubs and players guilty of using performance-enhancing and illicit drugs is understandable but has had two unfortunate consequences: it has distracted attention away from the end problem - criminality and match-fixing - and has created divisions at a time the commission seeks unity in confronting the problem.

''Everyone seems focused on asking when can we hear the cell-door clanging,'' he says, in reference to naming and shaming the guilty. ''But the important thing is to make codes, clubs and players aware criminals want to enter their sports and use drugs as a path to match-fixing.''

While people may argue there is nothing new in the links between organised crime and sport and draw attention to past prosecutions over match-fixing, Lawler said recent intelligence reveals a dramatic increase in links between athletes and criminals.

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''What is new is the issue of performance- and image-enhancing drugs, with many cases happening in the last couple of months,'' he said. ''We have information that the Russian and Italian mafias are supplying performance- and image-enhancing drugs across Europe. Organised crime is at the epicentre of sport with ramifications for soccer.

''There are 300 to 400 officials caught up in that and it is getting worse and worse.

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''All these cases have come in the past couple of months. When you look at it globally, it is a significant problem … It's already been reported by the Victorian police of an A-League game drawing a betting pool of $HK40 million [$A5 million]. The sounds of criminals who want to influence Australian matches is clanging like a cymbal.

''The supply of drugs to sportspeople by criminals is a very lucrative practice in its own right, but the real money is to be found in match-fixing.''

Lawler also made it clear the ACC report released in Canberra on February 7 was not, as many now believe, an atomic bomb set off to see what reptiles crawled out from the crevices.

''If anything, the report is conservative,'' he said. ''Over time, as more information emerges, people will look back on the public announcement of the results of the year-long investigation and rationalise why things are the way they are.''

While confidentiality provisions do not allow him to cite specific examples, he said there was increasing intelligence that the supply of drugs, gambling and corrupting games were linked.

''We've got players using peptides and amphetamines and other illicit drugs and supplying it to other players and being introduced to criminals. The crims look to corrupt the player but the players and their associations and their sports are not equipped to understand,'' he said.

''The criminals get their hooks in and get information and this leads to match-fixing and other criminality.

''It has a multiplier effect. There are some big blinking red signs and while the corruption may not be evident now, unless we do something, we have a major problem. The solution needs to come from within.''

Lawler said this is why it was disturbing for some of the media to

report one code has a bigger drug problem than another. ''In our briefings with the codes and players' associations, not one sport said they haven't got a problem. We want all the codes with us. Everybody's got a problem.''

Lawler said all sports and the Coalition of Major Professional and Participation Sports were briefed separately in Canberra on January 31. The next day the coalition advised all its members to attend a meeting in Melbourne on February 5 to discuss ''serious integrity issues''. The ACC press conference then took place in Canberra two days later.

He insisted no sports were given any information about other sports, nor has the ACC passed this on to the media. ''We've been careful not to mention codes, clubs and players. We won't do it and in private briefings to sports we won't comment on other sports,'' he said.